Mr. Chamberlain, speaking at Leeds on Wednesday, dropped all arguments
from figures, and dealt entirely with the broad principles of his scheme. All doctrines must be revised in time, and Free-trade was not an inspired creed, and beyond the need of such revision. We were losing trade, and were being outstripped In the commercial race, and Mr. Haldane's panacea of Charlottenburg schools, good as they were in their way, was not an adequate remedy. Schools cannot make our trading area larger than it is, and it is an increase of area that we require. We can acquire and confirm to ourselves a large trade area by the revision of our fiscal methods. Lord Rosebery said that commercial repose was what the country wanted; but if we aim at that we shall get it, and for ever. He was not convinced by our alleged prosperity. " To me the preservation of the country as a nation was much more than any number of cheques passed through the Clearing-house." It was of little use to listen to Free-trade advocates, and wait till we were ruined before we talked of remedies. We must put our fiscal system on a scientific basis, and so frame it that it shall meet the vital needs of the present hour rather than the theoretic requirements of our grandfathers. " Why should we suppose that our scientific economists, that our manu- facturers, cannot do what every other country and every Colony has been able to do P Now we are going to try to do it."
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